SAWPIT GULLY PUDDLERS
ONE EYE FOREST ROAD HEATHCOTE, GREATER BENDIGO CITY
Statement of Significance
The Sawpit Gully Gold Puddling Site consists of the remnants of two puddling machines complete with dumps of washed gravels, and patches of ground surfacing and shallow sinkings. These workings comprise a good characteristic example of the puddling technology developed in Victoria from 1854 in response to the need to process enormous amounts of clayey soil which needed to be broken up to get at the gold. Horses were used to drag harrows around a circular ditch in which the soil and water were mixed.
The Sawpit Gully Gold Puddling Site is of historical, archaeological and scientific importance to the State of Victoria.
The Sawpit Gully Gold Puddling Site is historically and scientifically important as a characteristic and well preserved example of a site associated with the earliest forms of gold mining which, from 1851, played a pivotal role in the development of Victoria. Puddling machine technology is particularly important in the history of Victorian gold mining as the only technology or method developed entirely on Victorian goldfields.
The Sawpit Gully Gold Mining Precinct is archaeologically important for its potential to yield artefacts which will be able to provide significant information about the cultural history of gold mining and the gold seekers themselves.
[Source: Victorian Heritage Register]
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SAWPIT GULLY GOLD PUDDLING SITE
Victorian Heritage Register H1246 -
SAWPIT GULLY PUDDLERS
Victorian Heritage Inventory
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